


The day my father died

by TheMackerelli



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: AU - all the mothers are alive, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Family, Lots of Secrets, M/M, Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-28 18:33:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23431738
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMackerelli/pseuds/TheMackerelli
Summary: Taking a different looks at the Wesninksi family.Neil comes to Palmetto with an estranged mother and a father on death row and meets a group of Foxes that are different - yet the same.He wants to move on and start a new life. But everything seems to be counting down to one day, the day his fathers death sentence will be carried out.
Relationships: Matt Boyd/Danielle "Dan" Wilds, Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 4
Kudos: 52





	The day my father died

**Author's Note:**

> The first chapter will be the shortest (just a little prologue) everything else will be a little longer.

Neil’s mother drives him to Palmetto the day before her plane leaves for England. Her mouth is set in a thin line the whole way and her eyes remain on the road resolutely. She does not say a single word the entire time it takes them to drive there.

Neil knows she’s angry at him, but she’s been angry at him for years now – at him and his dad, for chaining her to Baltimore. He had thought she might be happier, now that dad was gone but he’d been wrong.

So, he leans against the window on the passenger side and endures her cold silence. In the beginning he’d tried not to take her coldness personally, after all it had not been a situation that encouraged warmness or closeness. They’d been surrounded by FBI Agents and in constant fear something might go wrong. If something had gone wrong, Neil knew, they would be dead now. He had thought his mother didn’t want to show weakness in front of the agents. Later, after his dad’s sentence he had supposed it was shock or displaced grief. Neil had been sad, too, in a twisted sort of way.  
But his mother had remained distant, at times unnervingly so, hardly showing any emotion at all. The only time she had told Neil about her feelings was after he had told her he intended to stay in America and play collegiate exy. She had exploded at him and called him a traitor.

The memory at the fight still sends shivers down his back and he’s glad to get out of the stuffy car, when they finally pull into the parking lot of an apartment building near the campus. Coach Wymak is already waiting for them, along with a gentle looking woman, who must Ms. Winfield.

Neil can tell right away that his mother is unnerved by them, so he quickly steps forward to greet them. He can feel his mother hovering behind him, watching them with alert eyes. Her hand closes briefly but painfully around his shoulder when Coach invites them in.

The apartment is warm and cozy, a little cluttered and obviously full of treasured possessions. Ms. Winfield, who insist he call her Abby, leads them into her kitchen, which also doubles at a dining room.  
“Please sit down” she tells them with a smile and Neil immediately does, though his mother hesitates for a moment.

“Would you like something to drink?” Abby asks.

“No, thanks” Neil tells her.

He feels a little like he’s drowning, desperate for his mother to say something, anything. It’s like his dad’s business meetings that he sometimes took Neil to, or their stay at the safe house with the FBI agents or the first time he met his uncle. The ground underneath his feet is uneven, he’s slipping and everything his mother does pushes him further down.

Neil notices Abby and Coach Wymack exchange a look, and by the way his mother’s eyes track them, she sees it too. Neil is sure they didn’t mean anything by it – the atmosphere is awkward and stifled. But his mother’s eyes narrow into suspicious slits.

“So, where I am going to stay until the semester starts?” Neil asks, desperate to distract or maybe to relax the situation, “I can’t stay at the dorms yet, can I?”

“No” Coach confirms, “Actually you can decide. You can either stay here with Abby, or at my apartment with Kevin and me.”

“Or if you’re absolutely not comfortable with either, you can stay at a hotel” Abby interjects.

It’s a habit when Neil looks at his mother, but she almost looks like she hasn’t heard a word that has been said. 

“Whatever is most convenient for you guys,” Neil tells them.

“Well, it gets a bit crowded with Kevin around, so maybe you’d better stay here” Coach decides “Is your stuff still in the car?”

“Yeah” Neil confirms.

“I’ll help you get it” Coach stands.

Suddenly Mary stands and her chair scrapes over the hardwood floor.

“I’ll get it. Nathaniel?” she says, her voice unaffected.

Neil almost flinches at his name but stands to follow her, shrugging off Coaches inquiring gaze. Coach Wymack is one of the few people that know who Neil Josten really is and he still signed him, so Neil isn’t too worried about the slip.

His mother stands to the side as Neil unloads his suitcases. There is only one thing in those that isn’t brand new and that’s an envelope with a few pictures and several papers covered from top to bottom with numbers.

“I’d better go” she says when he has lifted the luggage out of the back of the car that had been provided by the FBI.

Neil isn’t surprised. It was a surprise when she offered to drive him – but this isn’t.

“Ok” he simply says.

There’s a beat of silence.

“You… take care of yourself” it’s obvious she is forcing the words out.

Now it’s him that won’t look at her. He doesn’t know if he can bear it.

“I will” he says and expects her to move towards the car, but she stays rooted to the spot.

“If you throw your life away foolishly, I won’t forgive you” her next words are harsh and angry, like a shock to his system.

A sarcastic reply is burning on his tongue, but he swallows it down. He has felt like this too often over the last few years, the need to snap back at his mother and hurt her like she is hurting him. But he always holds back. His mother doesn’t deserve his cruelty. She spent eighteen years married to Nathan Wesninksi trying to shield Neil from him and for that Neil owes her gratitude.  
Yet, he is also desperate to be far away from her and the guilt gnawing at him at every pronounced silence between and pained look on her face when she sees him looking more and more like his father. When he was 17, he dyed his hair and asked the FBI agents for colored contact lenses, but he gave it up after his father inprisonment. He would never admit it, but he liked looking like his father.

“Ok” he eventually tells her and out of the corner he sees her give a jerky nod and hurry towards the car. With a roar of the motor she is gone. Neil’s thinks that there is a good chance he might never see her again in his life.

When he goes back inside, Abby’s face twists in sympathy and she quietly show him to the room he is going to be staying in.

“Make yourself comfortable” she tells him with a soft voice.

Neil stays in the room, just sitting on his bed and staring at the wall for hours until Abby knocks on the door to call him to dinner.


End file.
